James Siegfried (April 20, 1953 – June 18, 2024; known professionally as James Chance, originally as James White) was an American saxophonist, keyboard player, and singer. A key figure in no wave, he played a combination of improvisational jazz-like music and punk in the New York music scene from the late 1970s on, in such bands as Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, James Chance and the Contortions, James White and the Blacks (as he appeared in the film Downtown 81), The Flaming Demonics, James Chance & the Sardonic Symphonics, James Chance and Terminal City, and James Chance and Les Contortions.
Contents
Background
James Siegfried was born in Milwaukee in 1953, growing up there and in the suburb of Brookfield, Wisconsin. Siegfried attended Michigan State University, then the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee. There, he joined a band named Death, which performed covers of the Stooges and the Velvet Underground before moving toward original songs.